Date: August 19, 2007
Contact: Al Nash, 307-344-2010
Contact: Stacy Vallie, 307-344-2012
The East Entrance to Yellowstone National Park is again open to traffic this morning, after being temporarily closed due to a mudslide outside the park.
Heavy rains Saturday afternoon caused mud and debris to come down on a section of US Highway 14-16-20, about 7 miles east of the East Entrance to Yellowstone National Park.
This temporarily cut off access to the park’s East Entrance starting about 2:00 p.m., causing visitors traveling between Cody and Yellowstone to detour through Cooke City and the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway.
Wyoming road crews worked on into the night to clear debris from both lanes of the road, allowing it to reopen to travel this morning.
This is the third temporary closure of the park’s East Entrance in the past week. The road had closed twice in recent days because of active fire behavior just south of road. This is the fourth time the East Entrance road has been temporarily closed this summer. A small mudslide near Sylvan Pass inside the park led to an overnight closure in late July.
Updated Yellowstone National Park road information is available 24 hours a day by calling 307-344-2117.
Once again, all park entrances and roads are open. All visitor services inside the park have remained open and fully operational. Recent rains have quieted activity on all fires in the park.
- www.nps.gov/yell -
